The 7 experiments that could teach us so much (if they weren't so wrong)

This article was taken from the September 2011 issue of
Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print
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When scientists violate moral taboos, we
expect horrific consequences. It's a trope that goes back at least
to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: however well-intentioned
our fictional scientists may be, their disregard for ethical
boundaries will produce not a peer-reviewed paper in
Science but rather a new race of subhuman killers, a
sucking wormhole in space-time, or a sea of malevolent goo.

In the real world, though, matters aren't so simple. Most
scientists will assure you that ethical rules never
hinder good research -- that there's always a virtuous path to
testing any important hypothesis. But ask them in private, perhaps
after a drink or three, and they'll confess that the dark side does
have its appeal. Bend the rules and some of our deepest scientific
conundrums could be elucidated or even resolved: nature
versus nurture, the causes of mental illness, even the mystery
of how humans evolved from
monkeys. These discoveries are just sitting out there, waiting for
us to find them, if only we were willing to lose our souls.

What follows are seven creepy experiments that show how
contemporary science might advance if it were to toss away the
moral compass that guides it. Don't try these at home -- or
anywhere, for that matter. But also don't pretend you wouldn't like
to learn the secrets that these experiments would reveal.

SEPARATING TWINS

The experiment:

Split up twins after birth -- and then control every aspect of their
environments

The premise:

In the quest to gauge the interplay of nature and nurture,
science has one obvious resource: identical twins, to people whose
genes are nearly 100 percent the same. But twins almost always grow
up together, essentially in the same environment. A few studies
have been able to track twins separated at a young age, but it's
impossible to control retroactively for all the ways that the lives
of even separated twins are still related. If scientists could
control the siblings from the start, they could create a rigorous
study. It would be one of the least ethical studies imaginable, but
it might be the only way (short of cloning
humans for research, which is arguably even less ethical) that
we'd ever solve some big questions about genetics and
upbringing.

How it works:

Expectant mothers of twins would need to be recruited ahead of
time so the environments of each sibling could differ from the
moment of birth. After choosing what factors to investigate,
researchers could construct test homes for the children, ensuring
that every aspect of their upbringing, from diet to climate, was
controlled and measured

The payoff:

Several disciplines would benefit enormously, but none more than
psychology, in which the role of upbringing has long been
particularly hazy. Developmental psychologists
could arrive at some unprecedented insights into personality --
finally explaining, for example, why twins raised together can turn
out utterly different, while those raised apart can end up very
alike.

Erin Biba

BRAIN SAMPLING

The experiment:

Remove brain cells from a live subject to analyse which genes
are switched on and which are off

The premise:

You might donate blood or hair for scientific research, but how about a
tiny slice of your brain -- while you're still alive? Medical
ethics wouldn't let you consent even if you wanted to, and for good
reason; it's an invasive surgery with serious risks. But it could
help to answer a huge question: how does nurture affect nature, and
vice versa? Although scientists recognise in principle that our
environment can alter our DNA, they have few
documented examples of how these so-called epigenetic changes
happen and with what consequences. Animal studies suggest the
consequences could be profound. A 2004 study of lab rats at McGill
University, Montreal, found that certain maternal behaviours can
silence a gene in the hippocampi of their pups, leaving them less
able to handle stress hormones. In 2009, a McGillled team saw a
hint of a similar effect in humans. In the brains of dead people
who had been abused as children and then committed suicide, the
analogous gene was inhibited. But what about in living brains? When
does the shift happen? With brain sampling, we might understand the
real neurologic toll of child abuse, and potentially far more than
that.

How it works:

Researchers would obtain brain cells just as a surgeon does when
conducting a biopsy. After lightly sedating the patient, they would
attach a head ring with four pins, using local anaesthetic to numb
the skin. A surgeon would make an incision a few millimetres wide
in the scalp, drill a small hole through the skull and insert a
biopsy needle to grab a tiny bit of tissue. A thin slice would be
sufficient, since you need only a few micrograms of DNA. Assuming
no infection or surgical error, damage to the brain would be
minimal.

The payoff:

Such an experiment could answer some deep questions about how we
learn. Does reading turn on genes in the prefrontal cortex, the site of
higher-order cognition? Does spending lots of time at the cricket
crease alter the epigenetic status of genes in the motor cortex?
Does watching reality television alter genes in whatever brain you have left?
By correlating experiences with the DNA in our heads, we could
better understand how the lives we lead wind up tinkering with the
genes we inherited.

Comments

Yet another way Religion has its fingers in everything we do. if it wasn't for religion we would be able to do all this and then some.

James

Aug 5th 2011

In reply to James

" Split up twins after birth -- and then control every aspect of their environments" - you think we could really do this if it were not for religion? You think that the only thing stopping us from treating each other like animals is religion? I am glad I don't know you. I have no religion, but I do have a moral sense. Such experiments would not be moral. Most people would agree, religious or not, and would have no difficulty recognizing that their moral aversion derives from their common humanity, not from supernatural beliefs.

Peter

Feb 11th 2012

Someone should do some reseach. The seperating twins thing has been done already, and when the twins found out they sued en massed, sealing the results for some 70 years.